January 17, 2008

Afterthoughts

Saturday, during group time, several questions came up that I wanted to capture for everyone. (It’s a real danger, when working with cooperative learning groups, to say something to one group and think you’ve said it to everybody!)

One group sought to align selection principles and criteria with goals, objectives, and selection targets. I can certainly see where they got this idea! (I’m sure I give the impression that everything must be aligned with everything.) Let me clarify: annually, you set program goals and objectives, and from these come selection targets. Alongside, you have your general selection principles and criteria that do not change (much) from year to year. While you might refer back and forth, and use some to help justify the other, you need not align these. Said another way, do align your Targets to your Goals/Objectives, and then I think you can stop.

The same group looked through Information Power to find some Selection Principles. That works – just pick out the ones that have to do with the collection. For example: p.83, Principle 5 works as a Selection Principle.

Another place to look is Bishop p. 42. While reading through, I had marked out Selection Objectives and replaced it with Selection Principles. In the interest of a shared vocabulary amongst members of the class, I recommend that you do the same. This list of bullets works well as principles.

There is no hard and fast rule about these – your Media Committee (or equivalent) gets to decide what these should be. Your job in this class is to collect a starting list so that you won’t have to start from scratch on the job.

Keep asking questions! They keep me on my toes and make life interesting.